Search results for: "Skillfulness"

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  2. Criticism
     … The Buddha starts out by saying, when you know for yourselves that something is unskillful, then you should avoid it; if something is skillful, you should develop it. But he doesn’t stop simply with your own observations on “skillful.” He also states that if something is praised by the wise, it’s something to follow. If something is criticized by the wise, it … 
  3. Acceptance
     … And what are you doing? Is it skillful or is it not? If it’s not skillful, then, one, you’ve got to admit the fact that it’s not skillful and, two, accept the fact you could make your behavior more skillful. This is the part of acceptance that many of us resist. We may not be happy where we are, but for … 
  4. Stick with It
     … They’ve done studies of people who were really experts at their skills, and they’ve discovered that these people have a very lively sense of the dangers that come when you don’t master the skill, and the rewards that come when you do master the skill. So we’ve got to learn how to cultivate that same sense of danger and rewards … 
  5. Coping & Beyond Coping
    When you meditate, you’re learning two basic skills: One is the ability to pull yourself out of unhealthy thought worlds, and the other is the ability to create a safe place inside for your awareness to settle. We create that place by giving the mind something good to focus on, something nearby—the breath, the way you feel the body from inside. When … 
  6. The Skill of Not Suffering
     … That way, you can free yourself from the suffering that you would otherwise feel if you weren’t skillful. We’re working on a skill: how to know our minds in the present moment. Even though we can’t change everything we want to change, at the very least we can use that knowledge of the mind to make the best of what we … 
  7. Loving Yourself
     … The trick is not to let yourself get depressed or down about your unskillful intentions—whether past or present—but to focus instead on the fact that you do have skillful intentions in here, too. And the more you follow those skillful intentions, the stronger they’re going to get. They may seem artificial sometimes. You might find yourself saying, “That’s not the … 
  8. A Good Independent Self
     … When you realize that your true well-being lies in acting in skillful ways, acting on skillful intentions, then even if you have the idea of an independent self, you’ll want to act on impulses for generosity, virtue, the desire to train the mind so that you can be truly happy. At the same time, you avoid a lot of the problems of … 
  9. Evaluating the Practice
     … That’s a very special skill. But in the course of that, you’ve got to learn a lot about your thinking: what gets it stirred up; when it’s going in a skillful or unskillful direction; what you can do to calm it down when it’s unskillful; and what you can do to encourage it when it’s skillful. These are all … 
  10. The Gatekeeper Doesn’t Just Note
     … Right view basically is knowing what’s skillful and what’s not, and the various techniques for dealing with skillful and unskillful qualities. Right mindfulness remembers those lessons and applies them to what you’re doing. Right effort is what actually does the work of abandoning unskillful qualities and developing skillful ones in their place. There’s another passage where the Buddha combines mindfulness … 
  11. Judging Your Meditation
     … Another important understanding about kamma is that there’s skillful kamma and unskillful kamma. Skillful kamma leads to a sense of well-being that causes no harm either to you or to other people. It doesn’t take anything away from them, and doesn’t lead to increased greed, anger, or delusion in your own mind. It’s important to understand that skillful kamma … 
  12. Go, Do Jhana
     … Those are the ones you want to encourage, because they’re skillful. Ultimately, they take you beyond fabrication. This is a part of insight. The fabrications that keep the mind still and steady, that keep the mind engaged in the pursuit of what’s skillful, are the ones you want to encourage. So this practice of steadying the mind, maintaining that still, steady flame … 
  13. A Meritorious Heart
     … You can’t expect someone to come down and undo your suffering for you, because your own suffering is caused by a lack of skill, and nobody else can make you skillful. They can point out how to become skillful. But the actual energy and attention, mindfulness and discernment that are needed to develop a skill: Those are things you have to bring to … 
  14. Assumptions
     … the desire to do what’s skillful. You hold onto that even if it’s not getting immediate results. That’s a skillful desire. It’s part of the path. And of course you want to do it skillfully as well. If an unskillful state comes up and you try to deny it or push it away, it’s going to come right back … 
  15. The Unity of the Path
     … This is the skillful use of judgment. The term “judging mind” has so much bad press here in America, especially in Dhamma circles, when it really shouldn’t. There’s skillful judging and unskillful judging. We’re trying to engage in skillful judging, which is focusing on actions and their results, rather than focusing on what kind of person you are. We’re focusing … 
  16. Study to Practice
     … How do you stay with the body in and of itself? How do you stay with the breath in and of itself? When greed and distress with reference to the world come up, how do you deal with them? And what’s the skillful way to be alert? To be ardent? What’s the skillful way to be mindful? After all, there are lots … 
  17. The Governing Principle
     … You’ve got to give rise to skillful qualities in the mind. And once you’ve got something skillful, you want to maintain it, to try to make sure that it doesn’t pass away. So always keep this in mind as you’re practicing, because the teachings that tell you otherwise are all over the place. When we were trying to find a … 
  18. Heedful, Ardent, & Resolute
     … It’s that desire to find what’s skillful in life along with the good results of what’s skillful: That’s what’s wise. And this is going to require effort. You notice there are things that have come up in the mind that are unskilful, so you learn to let go of them and then you do what you can to prevent … 
  19. How to Leave Concentration
     … It’s very rare, though, that we talk about how to leave concentration, but it’s an important skill as well. The Buddha listed it as part of mastery of concentration. If you think superficially, you might say, “Well, that’s the easiest thing to do, leave concentration”; that’s one skill you’ve got down. But actually there are skillful and unskillful ways … 
  20. Remembering Ajaan Lee
     … So, skillful desire is wise. It’s also wise in the sense that you understand how best to use the Buddha’s teachings in line with their purpose. You can read about the teachings and you can talk about them, but if you don’t have the desire to put them into practice and actually master them as skills, you can’t be said … 
  21. Get Out of Yourself
     … As you go from moment to moment, mindfulness is there to remind you again and again to be alert, to focus on what’s skillful and what’s not skillful, and try to understand these things so that you can really develop what’s skillful, and abandon what’s unskillful effectively. It’s good work, and you’re learning the skills that are needed … 
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